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"So," Pete said.
"So," Mikey said.
The My Chem bus was parked on a strip of dried-out grass, and Pete rotated his ankle and stubbed the toe of his sneaker into the dirt before looking back up at Mikey. "So," he said, "I guess this is it."
Mikey wrinkled up his nose and leaned forward to kiss Pete square on the mouth. Pete wanted to fuck him all over again. He made himself unwrap his hands from Mikey's biceps and take a step back.
"Bye, Mikey," Pete said. He stood there for a second and then pushed forward again, slung his arms around Mikey's waist, and kissed him one more time as hard as he could. Then he turned sharply on his heel and started walking.
"See you," Mikey said.
The funny thing was, he did, only a few hours later at the airport. Pete looked up from the bag he was trying to re-zip, and there was Mikey at the other end of the concourse with Bob and Worm. Mikey waved when he caught Pete's eye. Pete lifted a hand slowly and waved back.
Then he had to give up the bag, and when he turned back to look, Mikey was gone. Again.
Pete sat next to Joe on the plane, and that got him through the flight. His mom let him into the house and said, "I'm glad you arrived safely, Peter. I want to hear all about the tour - tomorrow."
"Sure, Mom," he said. She yawned discreetly, and he hugged her and said good night. Then he went upstairs and lay down flat on his bed.
He woke up to his phone buzzing with the Mikey tone and his heart racing. morning was all the text said, and Pete automatically typed morn in a reply before he caught himself and closed down the message. The phone clattered a little when he set it down on the nightstand.
Pete stayed in bed well into the day, until his back started to ache. At that point he got up and took a shower and then went back to his room and lay down again in the unmade sheets. In the evening he ate dinner with his parents, left Patrick a voicemail, and went back to bed.
Mikey sent him two more texts that day: mom bought new stuffed cockateil and cant sleep, u? Pete typed nope miss u and deleted it without sending.
The following morning Mikey wrote motherfuckin heat wave. Pete sat with the phone in his hand for quite a while, and then he called Mikey's number.
"Pete!" Mikey said. His voice sounded just the same. "How are you?"
"Hey," Pete said. "Listen. uh. Look, we talked about this, okay? I told you. I can't - you can't keep texting me. I need some space, dude. I'm just never gonna get over you if I keep hearing from you all the time."
Mikey chuckled softly into the phone. "Yeah, Pete," he said. "I know."